Camps for scamps

An American tradition is spreading

SOME have their faces painted as Spider-Man; others as sparkly pink butterflies. Children at Super Camps arrive each weekday morning bright-eyed and lunchbox-laden, ready for an eventful day. Besides wall-climbing (at which, no doubt, the Spider-Men excel), they are made to sing, dance, cook, swim, shoot arrows and create “graffiti art”.

The poet William Blake likened kids in school to birds in cages. (Apparently he thought caging them was a bad thing.) During the summer holidays, the little horrors are released and their harried parents must find ways to keep them out of trouble. Americans have long resorted to summer camps. A few weeks in the wilderness teaches youngsters self-reliance and new swear words.

The idea is spreading. In Britain, where childcare is costly—the average family with two earners spends 27% of after-tax income on it—day camps are popular. Super Camps, a national operator, charges £38 ($60) a day at most. A smaller rival, Camp Energy in Oxfordshire, charges £33. One of the founders of Mumsnet, a parenting website, calls such fees “eye-wateringly expensive”. Yet to many, they are a bargain. The minimum hourly wage for childminders is £6.08 and they will not teach you how to make fire with flints.

By one estimate, 250,000 British children attend summer camps each year. Their purpose, says Camp Energy’s founder, Barry Grinham, is “to ease the pain of parenting”. Their main competitor, says Justine Longford of Super Camps, is free child care from the extended family. Mr Grinham notes that many parents book at the last minute, after relatives cancel on them.

American camps operate on a grander scale. The American Camp Association estimates that over 10m children, including Sasha and Malia Obama, will attend one this summer. Specialist camps abound: for robotics fans, diabetes-sufferers, children whose parents are in the army or in prison, and so on. Lighter regulations make American camps more fun: safety rules bar British brats from enjoying the risky games that delight their American peers.

Some camps are marketing opportunities. US Sports Camps (USSC), for example, is sponsored by Nike, a sporting-goods firm. More than 55,000 kids will attend one of its 450 camps this summer; revenues are nearly $30m a year, says Steve Pence, the president. He reports steady growth in the past four years. “The last thing parents will cut is something for their child,” he explains.

USSC is trying to break into China. It has opened sports camps in Beijing and Shanghai, also sponsored by Nike. However, Mr Pence describes the Chinese market as “challenging”. Urban Chinese couples typically have one child, whose four grandparents have no other grandchildren. Finding babysitters is easier in Beijing than in Baltimore or Balham.